


Harsh Treatment

by idontevenknow (idontevenknowugh)



Series: Afflictionfell [3]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Anxiety, Disease, Gen, afflictionfell, death mention, unwilling medical procedure, violence mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 09:34:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12932484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idontevenknowugh/pseuds/idontevenknow
Summary: Assistants hustled to do as she ordered. When Alphs had started as the Royal Scientist the lab had been all but empty. Gaster was dead and his staff in prison, or they all liked to think they were in prison.As the epidemic spread, Alphys had been given more gold, more assistants, more supplies. Asgore was acting like he could buy his way out of this crisis. Alphys hadn't been able to articulate why that wasn't possible in his presence yet.





	Harsh Treatment

**Author's Note:**

> Check the end of the chapter for a link to Afflictionfell's blog. I'm going to be posting worldbuilding snippets, answering asks, and so forth there.

“Is this it?” Alphys asked the nervous researcher, Alphys had forgotten her name. “Three monsters?”

“They hid from us. There’s more, I saw them!” The researcher cried. She was clutching her pen so hard her green skin was turning white at the knuckles. 

“Very well…” Alphys turned to the monsters that had been brought in. She pointed at the eldest of the lot, “Bring him to an examination room.” 

Assistants hustled to do as she ordered. When Alphs had started as the Royal Scientist the lab had been all but empty. Gaster was dead and his staff in prison, or they all liked to think they were in prison. 

As the epidemic spread, Alphys had been given more gold, more assistants, more supplies. Asgore was acting like he could buy his way out of this crisis. Alphys hadn't been able to articulate why that wasn't possible in his presence yet. 

“Let's have a look,” She snapped on her gloves with practiced ease and grabbed a tray of tools before approaching the… teenager. She felt a queasiness in her soul she hadn't felt in a while. If this new disease targeted the young, it would be even harder to find test subjects. Parents were still protecting their children, when the parents lived. 

“Don't hurt me!” The aaron wriggled, trying to free himself from the assistants’ hold. 

“I'm not going to hurt you. This is just an exam. Te-”

“Liar! I've heard the stories!” He struggled harder. “Monsters who are brought here never come back out!” 

Alphys flinched. She knew that people talked about the lab in a less than favorable light. She knew why there were stories like that. They were mostly true. 

“Enough,” she growled. Grabbing a set of lenses for her glasses and long tweezers, she took his upper arm in hand and peered at the puckered scar at the end of it. 

“Tell me what happened to your arm.”  
——-  
“Doctor!” Another of her staff ran up to her as she made her way to the lounge. She hadn't been able to determine much with just the Aaron. The two younger monsters, maybe seven and four, had been needed. They were being preped for surgery now.

“What is it?” She snapped. 

“Patient 147 had an episode,” the assistant rushed out as he tried to catch his breath. Alphys looked past him, down the hallway. Lab coats were flapping behind her staff as they ran around, gurney after gurney rumbling down the hall away from the ‘treatment’ room. 

“How many did he get?” She asked weakly. 

“Six,” the assistant straightened his own coat, “before 187 attacked him in return. He's dust.” 

“And 187?” She continued on the the lounge, the assistant following after her. Her staff knew what to do. If the rampage was over, they didn't need her right now. 

“He took a good chunk of her hp. I doubt we can save her.” 

“Very well,” Alphys poured herself a cup of coffee. “Make sure someone updates the list this time.” 

“What do we put as cause?” The monster asked nervously.

“Drochide, of course. That damn disease is the only reason- 147’s family doesn't deserve to have him called a murderer.” Alphys responded savagely. The assistant nodded and pulled out a little notebook to write in. 

Alphys went ahead and ignored him. The coffee was bitter as usual, but it perked her up. There was no chance of her leaving ‘on time’ now. She would have to go straight from the kids’ surgery to handling all the paperwork for today’s incident. 

As they took in more and more of the diseased they were having trouble controlling them. The fear of death was a savage motivator. She could hardly stand to go into the treatment room and look at the ‘patients’ who feared her as much as they feared the disease. She didn't have any other way to test a cure, and she would try anything at this point. 

If only they wouldn't beg. 

“Doctor?” The assistant from before was gone, and one of the others had taken his place. 

“What?” She sighed.

“The… subjects are ready for surgery.” 

Alphys didn't correct her. Some of her staff coped by making the monsters they were treating as inanimate as possible. She found the process disturbing, but the last time she had corrected someone they had quit the very next day. 

“I’ll go get ready. Keep them under.” She drained the rest of her coffee and pushed away from the counter. The assistant didn't stop and remind her that keeping them sedated carried a huge risk to their HP. She just turned around and left.

It's not like there was much of a chance of them surviving anyways.  
——  
“You can't be serious…” 

The whole room nodded along with the speaker, obscuring the offending staff member. Alphys could have found her way to dusting them right there and then if she had found them. 

Delivering the news had caused her enough anxiety she felt about ready to faint. The idea that she had made it up, even spoken in shock, sent her spiraling into a rage.

“Of course I’m fucking serious!” She snapped, hitting the table so she didn't hit anything- or anybody- else. “Do you think this is any time to joke?” 

The room was silent. The assembled monsters barely seemed willing to breathe. Alphys swept her sharp glare and raised hackles around the table, just to be sure. 

“Then what, ah, what do we do…?” A brave soul at the front of the table, the one who had told her about the rampage, spoke up. Alphys kind of wished she knew his name now. 

“We just have to…” she faltered, crushed by the knowledge that she was lying to them. “… keep going, we’re close on drochide.” Even if she didn't know any of them or like most of them, there was something repulsive in the way she tried to sell the story to the people who had helped her build it. And in the way they began to nod along with her words. 

“I’d like you three,” she pointed out some of the more competent assistants, “to take the lead on grain. Let me know if you need more resources.” 

They voiced their assent and began to group up, whispering about how to start. She didn't typically tolerate talking during staff meetings, but she made an exception for this. Besides, she was almost done. 

“I believe it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyways. Talk of grain doesn't leave this building. It would create a panic among an already taxed population, and we don't even have enough confirmed cases to call it an outbreak. It could just be some fringe cases- no, I will give you more time to find those afflicted, but confirmed means they’ve been to the lab.”

The green monster closed her mouth and looked down at her notes. 

“Anything else?” Alphys asked, hoping with everything she had left that the answer was no. The room was silent. They had more than enough to occupy them. “Then get back to work.” 

The assistants filed out quietly, subdued by the news. Alphys waited for the door to close behind the last one before collapsing onto the table in front of her. What had she been thinking, finding her way into this job? What monsters needed for a Royal Scientist was a leader. She could stiffen her shoulders for an hour meeting, but she had none of the decision making, confidence, and calm rational of a real leader. Not like Gaster. 

“You were an idiot, old man,” she grumbled at the spot where Gaster’s picture used to hang. She had never replaced it with a picture of her own, leaving a distinct blank spot. “You knew him better than anyone. What did you think would happen?”

She struggled to her feet and pulled out her phone, intending to lose herself in the undernet for at least the walk to get some coffee. She still had death paperwork to file. Before she could, she saw a notification for an email from Asgore looking for his daily update. She sighed and began to type a reply on the phone. It would be short. She could keep her secrets for another day.

**Author's Note:**

> Check out [Afflictionfell](https://afflictionfell.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr for more info on the world at large.


End file.
